Animator Pres Romanillos departed this life Saturday afternoon after a long battle with leukemia. He was a dear friend and colleague.

I began with calling him an animator, because that was the title he was most proud of. He came out of Bronx,New York ( SVA or Pratt, I was never sure). He began as a trainee on Disney's ALADDIN, and animated on most of the important Disney and Dreamworks films in the next 15 years. Equally facile in CG as he was with 2D, he headed up the teams animating the villainous Shan Yu in MUHLAN, Little Creek in SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON, as well as MADAGASCAR, and PRINCESS AND THE FROG. He was co-directing an animated short in Spain, when he was stricken with his disease.



I am not a religious person. But I know energy does not die, and we are animated (forgive the pun) by an energy that leaves when we die, but does not die itself. So whether our energy goes to another dimension, or are reincarnated, or fly to a Happy Hunting Ground to meet a guy in a white beard who looks like Charlton Heston, I do not know.
But we can be sure, that death in itself is not an end.

Frederico Fellini said " Life is but a brief interval between two great Infinities."

Adieu Pres, I'll miss your smile and your friendship. I hope we will meet again.